Much of Eileen Jeffrey's adult life has been shaped by a woman she never met and a prime minister she never voted for.

"I remember Margaret Thatcher, of course I do," Jeffrey says, standing in the shadow of the South Quay Docklands Light Railway station. "I didn't agree with some of the things she did."

Jeffrey, 69, has lived on the Isle of Dogs in east London for 31 years. When she first moved here, she lived in a council house with her three young daughters and worked at the McDougalls flour mill on Millwall Dock. At that time, there was a community feel and Jeffrey knew all her neighbors' names but the transport links were bad: "There was only one bus and no shops at all until they built Asda," she says.